Minlogon is only for windows xp embedded though, it appears. The bottleneck for me is when Windows is loading, after the black Windows XP screen with the progress bar. The part I'm talking about is at the blue Welcome screen when (I believe) it says 'Windows is Starting Up', before it goes to the desktop.

so in order to get the minlogon files, I need to install XP embedded SP2. What impact will this have on a regular windows XP Pro installation? All I need is the files. I suppose I could install it, copy the files and then do a recovery.

Nope. You can use minlogon with a standard xp install on a standard hard drive, however alot of people do use it when usng a CF card as typically they're looking for the fastest boot up time possible (that's why they're using a CF card in the first place)